Late summer is the time for horses on the East End. This week, the editors are joined by reporter Cailin Riley and Shanette Barth Cohen, the executive director of the Hampton Classic Horse Show, who talk about 50 years of the prestigious event, including its history, evolution and the different competitions and activities that visitors to this year’s Classic will enjoy. The 50th Hampton Classic Horse Show runs August 24 to 31 at the showgrounds at 240 Snake Hollow Road in Bridgehampton.

This week, the editors are joined by Eric Kohn, artistic director of the newly revived Southampton Playhouse, who talks about how the historic, non-profit theater is establishing itself as a cultural cornerstone on the East End. Kohn discusses the Playhouse’s commitment to both classic and contemporary cinema, including its upcoming series "The Scorsese Family Experience," curated in collaboration with Martin and Francesca Scorsese, which launches August 14. The goal? To bring generations together through timeless films while building a sustainable model for a community-driven movie house.

Dan Stark and Hope Hamilton both returned to The Express News Group newsroom in 2025 for their second consecutive summer as full-time interns. Stark and Hamilton join the editors on the podcast to discuss their experiences and most memorable articles and to reflect on what they learned that they will carry with them into their future careers.

A year ago this week, Kristina Foster, supervisor of the Southampton Head Start Center, received some unwelcome news. During construction to expand the center at 271 Flanders Avenue in Riverside, the building was found to be structurally unsound. With less than a month before the start of the school year, the 88 children attending the free preschool education program had nowhere to go. Also at risk were the free meals and other services Head Start provides to low-income families throughout Southampton Town.

Foster scrambled and, with help from other organizations, cobbled together classroom space for 30 pre-K children during the 2024-2025 school year. However, she was not able to accommodate younger children, and the future of the center was unclear.

But earlier this week, Foster received some good — and totally unexpected — news.

During a press conference and visit to the Southampton Head Start site, State Assemblyman Tommy John Schiavoni and State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie announced that the state has pledge $2.25 million toward the building of a new Head Start facility in Riverside.

Foster joins the editors to talk about the challenges, the victories and the local Head Start’s new name.

Earlier this month, Karl Grossman retired after a more than six-decade-long career as an investigative journalist and professor at SUNY Old Westbury, where he taught for 47 years and led the development of a comprehensive media and communications major.

Throughout his career, Grossman has been inspired by the intersection of investigative and environmental journalism. Understanding the importance of the field, in 1974, Grossman founded the Press Club of Long Island, now one of the largest chapters of the Society of Professional Journalists in the country.

This week, Grossman joins the editors to talk about the state of journalism today. Though he’s stepping down from in-person teaching, he will continue to offer remote journalism classes. He will also keep penning his “Suffolk Closeup” column which appears regularly in The Express News Group newspapers, among others.

The Southampton Town Board recently unanimously approved a sweeping rezoning of a swath of Montauk Highway on the edge of downtown Hampton Bays. The move came barely a month after the legislation proposing the change was first introduced, and over the vociferous objections of a businessman who had planned to open a cannabis dispensary that will now be forestalled by the new zoning rules. Reporter Michael Wright joins the editors to discuss the rezoning and the lawsuit that is likely to come as a result.

President Donald Trump issued an executive order on May 1 instructing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to cease federal funding for NPR and PBS. Then in June, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a rescission package that revokes $1.1 billion that had been budgeted for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the U.S. Senate is expected to vote on that package as soon as this week. And on July 3, the Senate approved the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which zeros out Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding going forward. Bob Feinberg, the chief legal officer for The WNET Group — which includes WLIW FM, WLIW21 and other New York and New Jersey public media outlets — joins the editors and reporter Stephen Kotz to discuss where public media funding stands, what recourse, if any, is available and what's at stake.

The tenants of Quail Ridge — the two dozen studio and one-bedroom apartments spread over two buildings of a former motel along County Road 39 in Shinnecock Hills — typically pay less than $1,500 a month in rent, some considerably less. The apartments are not luxurious, and as former summer resort “efficiencies” they are not large. But they are fine, residents say, and they are affordable for employees of swimming pool and landscaping companies, delivery truck drivers or those living on a fixed Social Security income. That is about to change.

Reporter Michael Wright joins the editors on the podcast to discuss the fate of Quail Ridge and the growing difficulty in finding affordable housing on the South Fork.

Back in the 1970s, things weren’t looking great for osprey populations. There were just 75 known pairs living on Long Island at the time. The widespread use of the insecticide DDT had taken its toll on the birds, who ingested it through the fish they ate, resulting in thinning eggshells that were often crushed during the incubation period.

But after the banning of DDT and changes in environmental regulations, the birds’ numbers began to rebound. The Group for the East End had a major hand in helping the ospreys make a comeback through the installation of nesting platforms across the region.

This week, Bob DeLuca, president of Group for the East End, joins the editors to talk about the ospreys’ journey back from the brink of extinction and the upcoming monitoring program, where some 500 osprey nests across the East End will be visited.

Lifeguarding was once a male-dominated summer job on the East End, but those days are over. Ann Naughton, the chief lifeguard for Southampton Town beaches, and reporter Cailin Riley join the editors to discuss how lifeguarding has changed since Naughton began lifeguarding in the 1980s.